The Art of Twitter

Henry Woo

Associate Professor of Surgery

University of Sydney

Relevant Disclosures

• American Urological Association Social Media Workgroup

• Co-author EAU Social Media guidelines

• Editor-in-Chief, BJUI Knowledge

What is Twitter?

• Web 2.0 platform

– Owners provide software infrastructure

– Users provide content

• Content in the form of “tweets”

– 140 character limited expression

– videos, images, links can be added

– Hashtags enable searchable keywords

Tweet Examples

Tweet Examples

How to Get Started?

• Firstly, sign up to Twitter

• Easy process, follow the prompts

• If Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian can do it, there is hope not only for luddites but hope for all of you.

Twitter App Walk Through

Twitter App Walk Through

Terminology Review 1

• Tweet – 140 character limited content

• Following– Twitter accounts whose tweets you’ve selected to

observe

• Followers– Twitter accounts that have chosen to follow your

content

• Twitter feed– tweets you see from people you follow

Curating Your Twitter Experience

• What you see on twitter depends upon

– Who you follow

– Which hashtags you follow

• If you want to see tweets about butts and other crap, you follow Kim Kardashian

• If you want to hear the moans of teenage girls, you follow the #1D hashtag

Hang on a sec. What’s a Hashtag?

• # used to mean a shortcut notation for fracture

• Nowadays, nobody aged <30 thinks of it meaning anything other than hashtag in the context of social media (SoMe)

Hashtags

• Searching keywords

• A search on a hashtag will uncover tweets where #something has been included within 140 character tweets

Hashtag Examples

• Disease specific– Eg #pcsm

• Professional discussion– Eg #hcsm #hcldr

• Conference hashtags– Eg #AUA15, #USANZ15

• Journal Clubs– Eg #urojc, #igsjc, #nephjc

• Entertainment/Other– #QandA #TheProject #royalbaby #auspol #libspill

Who to Follow?

• Decide if you wish to keep the feed totally professional or not

• Most choose a mix

• Suggestions– Journals

– Other urologists

– Famous people of personal interest to you

• Unsure – see who others are following and follow the same

Lists

Twitter Feed Strategies

• Work out who you want to follow

• Work out which hashtags you want to follow

• Work out which lists you wish to follow

• Mute those whose tweets you wish to hide but when you don’t want to unfollow

• You can selectively turn off retweeted content from those you follow

Terminology Review 2

• Handle– @something – try to keep it short

• Hashtag– a searchable term in the format #something

• Mute– Hide tweets from specified accounts

• Lists– Groups of accounts you may compile or join– You don’t have to follow or be followed by individual

accounts to be in a list

What About Your Own Content?

• Create your own tweets

– Succinct interesting comments or thoughts attract attention/interaction

– Images, videos, links enhance your content

• Share the content of others

– Click the re-tweet button and somebody else’s tweet will be shared to those who follow you

The Art of Twitter?

• Curate the content you receive

• Your content creation can curate your followering and interactions with your tweets

Enjoy!